Ben Stein vs. Sputtering Atheists

[storch]

Well I have to admit your argument is nonsense, how am I supposed to read your mind and figure out which of the infinite number of nonsense reasons you had for getting such an idea?

You mean you're now talking about the big bang theory?  No I don't see what the heck you're thinking to say stuff like "science is religion".

no need to read my mind moot, I type it and speak it daily.  my point is this.  science should be dispassionate.  scientists are people, very highly educated and often highly opinionated people with colossal egos.  many in the disciplines of cosmology geology and biology are militantly anti ID.  so much so that they absolute refuse to entertain the remotest possibility of ID.  in fact they passionately oppose the idea.  now what do we say science should be?

[SkyRock]

 what the 2nd law clearly demonstrates is that it is impossible for an orderly universe to be the result of an explosion.  

It is my opinion that either you don't understand the second law of thermodynamics, or you assume others don't.  Either way, it definitely does not "clearly demonstrate" the impossibility.

[SkyRock]

no need to read my mind moot, I type it and speak it daily.  my point is this.  science should be dispassionate.  scientists are people, very highly educated and often highly opinionated people with colossal egos.  many in the disciplines of cosmology geology and biology are militantly anti ID.  so much so that they absolute refuse to entertain the remotest possibility of ID.  in fact they passionately oppose the idea.  now what do we say science should be?

Instead of using the term ID, why not inform us of your belief so that we might understand exactly where you're ideas coming from. 

From my experiences, most who believe in intelligent design aren't going to settle on it being incorporated into the science classroom, they want it taught as the only truth. They want evolution to be thrown out completely.  It is why you get the negative reactions from scientist who spend their lifetimes working for the truth to have people try and throw a theory in the works that has no scientific basis.  Why don't the ID folks just leave science alone, and go for the religious classes?  Science is science and religion is religion, they are two different beasts.

I agree with moot that eventually, folks who argue that evolution is not happening, will be trying to get their foot out of their mouth.

[moot]

Storch,
I say science is science. Guns are guns.  Guns don't kill people any more than science is religion.  
It's not like I don't know what ID is supposed to be going through.  I almost went for a biochemistry career, to research anti-senescence. A good part (if not the majority) of that research's field is up in arms, calling it pseudoscience and counter productive to the cause by giving people false hope. I also read this other forum, where a lot of richly fed brains go on and on about various theories.. One of em is Electrical Universe theory of cosmology, and that too gets more than just a cold shoulder.

The problem with ID is that it's a Deus Ex.  That's not science.  Not the least of its flaws is that, in practice, it's a dead end for progress:  It runs into the Deus Ex wall, and then what?  Nothing. There's nothing to gain from a black box phenomena that you can't open and peek inside, you can't shake it to hear if the insides rattle, you can't even feed it input to see what it outputs directly, you can't even reach out and touch the edge of the black box.  You can't read the mind of God, it's not science to pretend you can or do; ID and creationism aren't science.
While Senescence engineering and Electrical Universe theory follow scientific method, and fall short of support either because one's trying to bite off more than people think it can chew and other because it just doesn't match enough practical data to give it credence, ID and Creationism are both flawed by principle.  They don't even satisfy the criteria of science.

Which only leaves me and a lot of others to wonder just what the intent is, in people pushing ID and Creationism as a science.  Are they out to asphyxiate science?  Are they merely misguided and want to see their religious ideas find a reflection in science?  Are they just mistakenly out to plant a flag in what they perceive as the necessarily atheist territory of science?  Are they actualy so confused as to expect science to detect something Godly out in our natural and finite world?  How dispassionate is that?

I'll admit that some people's agendas seem suspiciously passionate, like say Dawkins.  My problem with Dawkins is that he's too rabbidly activist.  I'll agree to that.  But being so far out beyond properness doesn't void any truth he might hit on in his atheist stride.  
I was going to say more, but I need to think about it first.  

In the mean time I don't mean to be an amazinhunk, but unless you've got a reason to say that the popular notion of 'order' isn't an anthropomorphism of physics, your assertion that the universe as we see it is too orderly to have come from an explosion is wrong.

[myelo]

thank you for your response myelo,

in response I will again state that there is no evidence of any living thing evolving into a completely different life form. 

You're welcome.

OK, you're going to dismiss the evidence I presented of observed speciation, observed evolution, and the fossil record of transitional forms. Fair enough. I'd get into the even more compelling DNA evidence but I'll just save you the effort in ignoring that too.

But let me ask you this. If scientists are as egotistical as you say, don't you think there are scientists who would give their left nut to have their theory replace the current theory of evolution? It would be an automatic Nobel prize.

In fact, when Darwin's work was published in 1859, the theory was immediately attacked, not just by religious leaders but by scientists. But every subsequent discovery that tested the theory -- Mendel's genetics, subsequent paleontology findings, Watson and Crick's DNA, genetic and molecular biology -- failed to discredit the theory and in fact has confirmed it.

For example, evolutionary theory predicts  that human's closest extant relative is the chimpanzee and human and chimp DNA should be more similar than, say human and dog DNA. But we didn't know for sure. That is, until the genomes of these species were recently mapped. If human and dog DNA was more similar it would have been a serious maybe even fatal blow to evolutionary theory. But once again, evolutionary theory was confirmed.

People who know a lot more about this stuff and work a lot harder at it than you or Ben Stein have been trying like hell to disprove evolutionary theory. They have uniformly failed.

[moot]

In fact, when Darwin's work was published in 1859, the theory was immediately attacked, not just by religious leaders but by scientists. But every subsequent discovery that tested the theory -- Mendel's genetics, subsequent paleontology findings, Watson and Crick's DNA, genetic and molecular biology -- failed to discredit the theory and in fact has confirmed it.

People who know a lot more about this stuff and work a lot harder at it than you or Ben Stein have been trying like hell to disprove evolutionary theory. They have uniformly failed.

That doesn't sound like religion, or does it Storch?

[storch]

You're welcome.

OK, you're going to dismiss the evidence I presented of observed speciation, observed evolution, and the fossil record of transitional forms. Fair enough. I'd get into the even more compelling DNA evidence but I'll just save you the effort in ignoring that too.

But let me ask you this. If scientists are as egotistical as you say, don't you think there are scientists who would give their left nut to have their theory replace the current theory of evolution? It would be an automatic Nobel prize.

In fact, when Darwin's work was published in 1859, the theory was immediately attacked, not just by religious leaders but by scientists. But every subsequent discovery that tested the theory -- Mendel's genetics, subsequent paleontology findings, Watson and Crick's DNA, genetic and molecular biology -- failed to discredit the theory and in fact has confirmed it.

For example, evolutionary theory predicts  that human's closest extant relative is the chimpanzee and human and chimp DNA should be more similar than, say human and dog DNA. But we didn't know for sure. That is, until the genomes of these species were recently mapped. If human and dog DNA was more similar it would have been a serious maybe even fatal blow to evolutionary theory. But once again, evolutionary theory was confirmed.

People who know a lot more about this stuff and work a lot harder at it than you or Ben Stein have been trying like hell to disprove evolutionary theory. They have uniformly failed.

myelo, I'm not ignoring or dismissing your examples. I plan to read up on it over the coming week.  I have been setting up a polo pitch on the beach all week and after this weekend's events we have to tear it down again,  I have been working 18 hour days.  after that it will be business as usual and I'll be able to suck off all I want and pursue these ideas a bit.

by the same token myelo, science has been busily trying to prove the theory for the last one hundred and fourty nine years and is equally stalled.  let me note here that the concept of natural selection was first published in the observations of edward blyth in 1835 a quarter century before the publication of origin of species, suggesting that perhaps charles darwin borrowed these ideas from blyth.  blyth, a creationist scientist is reponsible for the work that leads up to the predictions you mention.  many of blyths concepts have been falsely attributed to darwin and cited as evidence of evolution.  there is a movement within the evolutionist camp which is departing from the highly imaginative work of charles darwin and moving more towards the blyth's far more valid work.  

[storch]

That doesn't sound like religion, or does it Storch?

I'm beginning to wonder if myelo is a priest and you a deacon.   

[RTHolmes]

amazing that an issue which was effectively settled over a hundred years ago can generate over 300 replies.

I personally have no desire to argue against a theory as desperate, lazy, pointless and flawed as ID, in the same way as I have less trivial things to think about than arguments against the flat earth theory. moot I applaud your patience and clear reasoning in this topic. 


btw go to disagree with Dawkins being rabid, the guy is a model of critical detachment, perspective and rationality. he is, however, aggressive in his pursuit of reason, and I like him all the more for it

[moot]

Storch just show evidence for your assertions, please.

RTH, I thought so too, until I saw his TED talk about activist atheism.  If those aren't tremors of passion, something's wrong with my eyeballs.

[RTHolmes]

o yeah he is passionate about his beliefs, but as long as that doesnt cloud his thinking (no evidence so far) it has to be a good thing. the TED lecture was great, a call to reason, and a very brave thing to do even for an english academic. if he looked a little nervous you can understand.

[Yeager]

so...can matter travel as fast as light?  is light matter?  does it really matter?

Whats the matter?

[Mini D]

It's both. Bacterial genes, as all genes do, will randomly mutate. In some cases this mutation confers resistance to an antibiotic.  This trait is heritable since it is based on a change in the genes. This mutation was not caused by the antibiotic and would occur without antibiotics. But with no antibiotic, the trait is not useful.

It is an inherant trait that is genetic. It provides survivability for certain bacteria, but not others. That is natural order, not evolution. Evolution can't explain how that trait came into existance. It insists that the bacteria sensed danger and simply changed it's makeup to avoid it. Science does not support this in any form. Evolution, as supported by science, is subtractive, not additive. A new bacteria was not generated, it was discovered. It's exisitance has been seen both in the presence of antibiotics and in undisturbed soil. The antibiotics do nothing but make it a big fish in a small pond.

[storch]

amazing that an issue which was effectively settled over a hundred years ago can generate over 300 replies.

I personally have no desire to argue against a theory as desperate, lazy, pointless and flawed as ID, in the same way as I have less trivial things to think about than arguments against the flat earth theory. moot I applaud your patience and clear reasoning in this topic. 


btw go to disagree with Dawkins being rabid, the guy is a model of critical detachment, perspective and rationality. he is, however, aggressive in his pursuit of reason, and I like him all the more for it

it's amazing that you think the matter is settled but then again there is no accounting for faith.

[thrila]

It is an inherant trait that is genetic. It provides survivability for certain bacteria, but not others. That is natural order, not evolution. Evolution can't explain how that trait came into existance. It insists that the bacteria sensed danger and simply changed it's makeup to avoid it. Science does not support this in any form. Evolution, as supported by science, is subtractive, not additive. A new bacteria was not generated, it was discovered. It's exisitance has been seen both in the presence of antibiotics and in undisturbed soil. The antibiotics do nothing but make it a big fish in a small pond.

Are you saying that evolution says: bacteria sensed the trait and adapted? or is that your opinion.  Either way it is wrong.  The trait came into existance from random mutation alone- polymerases involved in replication are prone to errors, to so some degree or another, whether it be an RNA or DNA polymerase.  This causes variation in genotypes in a population naturally, one conferring resistance to an antibiotic is a result of this variation.  Evolution is the change in the traits of a population over time- and if there was a selective pressure due an antibiotic, it is natural that the bacteria with resistance to the said antibiotic would become dominant.  Evolution has never been said to create new traits- it is from random mutation.  It is evolution due to selective pressures that amplifies this in a given population.

It is worth noting that 70% of out antimicrobials in use are derived from Streptomyces, which are soil dwelling bacteria.  It is of no surprise to anyone in the scientific community that resistance to antimicrobials occurs in soil bacteria because they are routinely exposed to them.  It must also be noted that mutations may also confer an advantage for more than 1 selective pressure.  For instance in my research the protein OprH enabled  Gram-negative bacteria to grow in the absence of magnesium.  This also confers resistance to EDTA because EDTA chelates di- and tri-valent cations e.g magensium.  This is a personal example to show  that adaption to one environmental condition can also confer an advantage to an unrelated environmental condition. 

P.S. i believe in god, but i don't have any trouble with evolution what so ever.